We’re getting into the climatological heart of the Atlantic hurricane season, when you’d expect the tropics to be teeming with activity if, as virtually everyone has predicted, this is going to end up being an above-average year for hurricanes. Tropical activity historically increases throughout late August and early September, peaking on September 10:

At the moment, however, it’s eerily quiet. Dean was the third-strongest landfalling Atlantic-basin hurricane in recorded history, but now it’s like the calm after the storm. The last six consecutive Tropical Weather Outlooks have said the exact same thing:

FOR THE NORTH ATLANTIC…CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO…

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORMATION IS NOT EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

It’s still not a “slow season” yet, but if this keeps up for the next couple weeks, it will be.

P.S. Alan Sullivan “continue[s] to expect a subnormal season.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Jeff Masters offers a wrap-up of Dean’s aftermath.

NFL has suspended Michael Vick indefinitely, The Associated Press reports.

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Breaking news from Cuba: Generalissimo Francisco Franco Fidel Castro is still alive. Or so says the Cuban government, but rumors are rampant in Miami that he’s knock, knock, knockin’ on Hell’s door.

UPDATE: PerezHilton.com, that renowned source of international news and geopolitical analysis, says Castro is dead. More here. (Hat tip: A&A.)

Pajamas Media has a roundup of links, which will doubtless grow as more information is known. (However, one of their links, supposedly to a Miami Herald story about the Castro death rumors, instead currently points to a Space.com article titled, “Huge Hole Found in the Universe.” Wait… so Fidel Castro got sucked into a black hole???)

P.S. Glenn Reynolds blames “star-devouring space monsters” for the mysterious hole in the universe. Star-devouring, and Castro-devouring!

Nope, not a software unlocker, but a hardcore, hardware unlocking that requires soldering.

Kinda glad that I actually have my mobile service wtih AT&T anyway, so this isn’t really a big deal for me.

UPDATE by David K.

Two software solutions are being announced today as well, and atleast one claims it works even if you do a restore of your iPhone’s software.

John Evander Couey is sentenced to death for the abduction, rape and murder of a 9-year-old Florida girl in 2005.

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Michael Vick admits funding a dogfighting operation and that “collective efforts” by him and two others caused the deaths of at least six dogs, his plea agreement states.

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The second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is approaching, and on Sunday — two years to the day since my oft-quoted “New Orleans in peril” and “get the hell out” posts — I’ll be giving a talk, or hosting a forum, or whatever you want to call it, on the hurricane at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church at 10:05 AM, part of their weekly “Sunday forum” series. I was asked to do this by Edward Lollis, chairman of the church’s forum committee, who is a fan of my blog and wanted to do something for the storm’s anniversary. Anyway, here is what the church’s official newsletter has to say about Sunday’s event:

Forum at 10:05 AM— “Hurricane Katrina: What Went Right and What Went Wrong”: When Hurricane Katrina roared ashore two years ago today, its human toll would have been far less had Mayor Nagin and the Louisiana media heeded the warnings of Brendan Loy, a 23-year old law student in South Bend, Indiana. Immediately after the storm, Loy’s predictions were acclaimed by the New York Times and Washington Post, and his web log (blog) became one of the most frequently linked-to websites of all times. Loy recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame and moved to Knoxville. He will tell us how he scooped the nation in 2005 and how the mainstream media and government continue to fail the people of New Orleans.

I’ll try my best to live up to that billing. To be honest, I’m still working out exactly what I’m going to say. :) I suspect I’ll be somewhat heavy on the 2005 stuff and somewhat lighter on the “continue to fail” part, as I haven’t followed subsequent events in New Orleans as closely as I’d like. But I think I’ll still have some reasonably valuable things to say, if I don’t get totally bogged down in the minutiae and run out of time! Whatever I say, I’ll definitely have to issue my standard clarification/correction about the whole “predictions” thing — I didn’t “predict” it, I just sounded the alarm, as I always say. Anyway, the church is at 2931 Kingston Pike here in Knoxville, if anyone wants to come on down.

Teehee.

The league is full!

P.S. - This will be through Yahoo! Fantasy Football.

Hurricane Dean’s death toll stands at 20:

No deaths have been reported in Mexico, even though the storm hit the Yucatan as a Category 5 behemoth with 165 mph winds and was still a powerful Category 2 hurricane when it arrived here. The death toll in the Caribbean, though, rose Wednesday to 20 with the discovery of seven bodies in Haiti, where 3,000 were killed during Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dean was expected to dissipate over Mexico’s central mountains by early Thursday.

Meanwhile, the considerably less sexy weather story of the week — heavy rain in the Midwest and Great Plains states, some of it caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin — is proving to be more deadly than the third-strongest hurricane ever to make landfall:

More than 1,000 people were flooded out of their homes Thursday after heavy rain that swamped communities across the Midwest sent Ohio’s rivers spilling over their banks, the governor said. The storm’s death toll also rose when three people were electrocuted by lightning at a bus stop.

“This is a major, major disaster,” Gov. Ted Strickland told CBS’s “The Early Show” Thursday. …

With the flooding and more storms moving through, the death toll across the Upper Midwest and from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin that swept Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri over the past week also rose to at least 26.

TROPICAL STORM DEAN has been changed to TROPICAL DEPRESSION DEAN.

Visit the NHC website for the latest.

HURRICANE DEAN has been changed to TROPICAL STORM DEAN.

Visit the NHC website for the latest.

A NHC special statement reports Dean’s second landfall:

THE CENTER OF HURRICANE DEAN MADE LANDFALL IN MEXICO NEAR THE TOWN OF TECOLUTLA…JUST EAST OF GUTIERREZ ZAMORA AND ABOUT 40 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF TUXPAN AT ABOUT 1130 AM CDT…1630 UTC. THE ESTIMATED INTENSITY OF DEAN AT LANDFALL WAS 100 MPH…160 KPH….CATEGORY TWO ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE.

The NHC’s 11 am EDT discussion talks about the hurricane’s development after emerging back over water:

RECENT OBSERVATIONS ARE SHOWING A CONTRACTION OF THE INNER CORE WIND FIELD … THE ADVISORY INTENSITY IS INCREASED TO 85 KT…MAKING DEAN A CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE. FORTUNATELY…THESE CHANGES IN THE CORE STRUCTURE ARE OCCURRING TOO CLOSE TO LANDFALL TO ALLOW FOR MUCH FURTHER INTENSIFICATION.

The NHC’s 11 am EDT advisory talks about current warnings and forecast conditions along the Mexican coast:

A HURRICANE WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT ALONG THE GULF COAST OF MEXICO FROM COATZACOALCOS NORTHWARD TO LA CRUZ … DEAN IS EXPECTED TO REACH THE COAST OF MEXICO NEAR TUXPAN EARLY THIS AFTERNOON. STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 6 TO 8 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS IS POSSIBLE… ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES… NEAR AND TO THE NORTH OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL. DEAN IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE STORM TOTAL RAINFALL OF 5 TO 10 INCHES OVER PARTS OF SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL MEXICO… WITH MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF UP TO 20 INCHES. THESE RAINS COULD CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUDSLIDES … MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…100MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…979 MB.

Dr. Jeff Masters discusses early damage estimates:

Dean lost its eyewall and became rather disorganized from its passage over the Yucatan Peninsula, and is only now beginning to increase its winds. With only a few hours left before landfall, Mexico is fortunate that Dean is moving so quickly–20 mph–and does not have time to organize further. The Mexican coast near the landfall point is the most densely populated area Dean will affect, and damage there will probably exceed $1 billion. Risk Management Solutions has estimated the insured damage to the Yucatan was between $750 million and $1.5 billion. Total damage is typically double the insured damage, so the price tag for Dean will be very steep for Mexico. Dean also did an estimated $3 billion in damage to Jamaica, and $270 million to Martinique.

Fourteen U.S. soldiers died Wednesday when their helicopter crashed in northern Iraq, according to the U.S. military.

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